[ASBusinessMagnet] By the way, this is a companion fic to my Andersen's Mind video "Anger plans to overthrow Joy". Given the nature of the video, though, I can't believe I have to clarify this: in this fic, as in Inside Out, Riley is American (from Minnesota, currently in San Francisco). The basic plot (down to the line) of the original video remains, though.
Riley Andersen's emotions idly watched the Consciousness Screen as she angrily entered her room, dropped her hockey gear without much regard as to whether or not it would get broken and laid down for a night's rest.
Just one week ago, they had quite possibly the worst experience in the eleven years during which they led their girl. As she moved to San Francisco, Joy found herself especially struggling to keep both her leadership and Sadness in check, which led to their both's temporary exile, as well as the loss of all of Riley's Islands of Personality. During this exile, as a last resort, Anger had decided that Riley should run away back to Minnesota, and only a lucky divine intervention in the form of Joy and Sadness's return put a stop to that. Eventually, Riley confessed regarding what she did to her parents, and while they held some distaste for her actions, they ultimately understood and comforted her, which led to the creation of the new Family Island.
Unfortunately, wounds like this take time to heal, and while Joy was now willing to accept that Sadness had a role in Riley's mind, as well as that all the old Core Memories were sad now, she still stubbornly held onto some of her views. Most notably, she did not let Sadness put in the old Core Memories back in, which meant that, as of now, the new Family Island was still the only Island of Personality standing. This meant that, since there wasn't a Hockey Island standing anymore, Riley couldn't play hockey properly anymore, and therefore she still didn't get into the local team at her school, the Foghorns. The relationship between Joy and Sadness had gotten so bad, Disgust had to personally ensure that they would be getting a "vacation" (which the Mind Workers helped schedule via the Train of Thought) to sort out their differences and only return when they were good and ready, or else, only when it was absolutely necessary.
As Riley dropped onto her sleeping bag, Disgust thus looked back at the view from Headquarters, only showing the new Family Island, and declared: "All in all, I would not let Joy and Sadness run away again."
Anger, though, was considerably irritated by Disgust having such an attitude. For the emotions, being reactive had never done anything good to Riley; in order to correct their past mistakes, they needed to be proactive and take concrete steps. In a fit of fury, Anger thus crushed the latest issue of The Mind Reader ("RILEY AND HOCKEY: NOW INCOMPATIBLE?") and kicked away a soft, backless chair as he shouted: "In that case, why don't you just fix the crux of the problem?"
"And what would that be?" Disgust asked, in equal distaste, as she did not understand the angle Anger was approaching this problem from.
Fear also had no idea what Anger was thinking, but nevertheless, had his own idea as part of the grand plan to fix Riley. He thus stepped towards the Recall Tube, in the process stepping on a button to recall all the day's memories, a suitcase in his hand, and declared, as confidently as he could be without having an idea as to what was going on: "Letting emotions run away! We have determined that all five emotions are integral, which means this shouldn't work!" After he finished this sentence, the Recall Tube closed in on him and began the process of taking the memories of the day to Long-Term Memory.
After all, this was the problem, right? If the Recall Tube couldn't transport emotions, then Joy and Sadness could never accidentally escape, much less with the Core Memories, which would mean this kind of damage would never be done to Riley.
Fear, though, should have really anticipated what happened next, especially since he was through this once before. The incoming memories clogged up the tube, making him stuck, then knocking him against the tube's wall repeatedly, and finally, the whole tube was lifted, dropping Fear and a mixture of red, green and purple memories onto the floor of Headquarters.
As Disgust was watching this, she pretty much couldn't believe what she saw. This was an exact repeat of last week, except with different words (and presumably different short-term memories). Given this, she quickly realized the flaw in Fear's logic, and thus pointed out to him: "It didn't work last time."
If anything preceding this wasn't a dead ringer that this was a repeat of the situation, the fact that Fear, shortly after Disgust said these words, puked up a green memory, definitely was. However, rather than focus on the obvious fact that it was all a huge déjà vu (was that department out of work today?), Disgust decided to look for the cause for the general problem which resulted in what the emotions had to live through, not long ago. She thus declared: "No, the problem is that Joy's views are damaging us."
This got at least Anger to think about it more deeply. "You're right. Let me..." He motioned towards the shelf where ideas were held after being delivered from the Idea Fields, and began looking through them in order to find the one he wanted. His mumbling while he was searching was incomprehensible, and therefore, Fear and Disgust had tuned out.
They only tuned back in once Anger said "Yes!" and swiped the idea lightbulb that he wanted.
Unfortunately, a simple yes did not satisfy Fear or Disgust, and therefore, Fear cautiously approached Anger, not wanting to get on his case again, and asked: "Yes, what?"
"Yes, I finally realized what to do." Anger cryptically answered.
Disgust, though, knew that this still wasn't a satisfactory answer. "What will you do?" she further inquired.
Anger thus, as he stepped down nearer to the console and turned to face Fear and Disgust, gave them a clearer answer: "This entire debacle was a direct result of Joy's leadership. Therefore, I will replace Joy as the leader of Riley's emotions! Ta-da!" However, in addition to being clearer, it was also more sinister, as Anger was essentially threatening the current order of Riley's mind. The sentence structure was also troubling, as it immediately reminded Disgust of what he said last time, 'All the good Core Memories were made in Minnesota. Ergo, we go back to Minnesota and make more!'.
Fear, though, chose to focus on the first point. "Wait, wouldn't that be... a coup d'état?"
Anger simply couldn't have Fear worrying over such a minute detail like whether overthrowing Joy was morally correct or not. After all, this was for Riley's greater good, wasn't it? This couldn't be called a coup d'état. Anger thus decided to call it something else: "Nah, think of it more as the replacement of Joy's dictatorship with a democracy."
"That is literally what I said!" Fear retorted, knowing full well that Anger was simply avoiding the issue and painting himself as a hero.
"Hey!" Anger responded, almost instinctively objecting to Fear. He then decided to try and interpret Fear's words literally: "That means you agree that Joy is a dictator, and we can't have such a thing in San Francisco." The only difference from last time was that Anger didn't call the city Riley had moved to 'San Fran Stinktown'; after all, he had now realized that California itself wasn't the problem, and Joy was.
Fear, though, noticed a flaw in Anger's logic. Not the one in taking words literally, but a slightly different one. "Associating leadership with city seems a bit wrong..."
Anger, at the time, was deeply involved in how he would present himself. Sure, the idea that Riley would act one way in Minnesota and completely differently in San Francisco was outlandish, but leadership can and has been associated with city a lot of times by different countries. Anger had even devised an example, which Riley picked up... well, not on her History lessons at school, and responded, as he stepped towards the console and pushed buttons on it to recall the memory: "Guess you don't know any history. Allow me to demonstrate this with Russia..."
In Anger's hypothetical nonexistent mind, the correct scenario was already playing out. In 1712, when Peter the Great wanted to establish himself as more European, he established the city of Saint Petersburg, based on European architecture, from the ground up and moved the capital of Russia there from Moscow. Then, from 1726 to 1730, the Supreme Privy Council, which had essentially usurped power it was never meant to hold (Anger shrugged off the similarities between them and himself), were headquartered in Moscow, making it the capital for that brief time and moving it back to Saint Petersburg once the council was abolished. Finally, in 1918, Vladimir Lenin, who was definitely revolutionary in his own way, moved the capital back to Moscow, where it stayed until what Riley saw as the present day.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the Mind Workers, once again, had radically different ideas. Rather than the sight Anger wanted to see, the thing that was projected through the Mind's Eye was the familiar advertisement, coupled with its earworm jingle: "TripleDent Gum will make you smile..."
Before the second line of the jingle could even start, Anger had already had enough of it, and the fact that this memory was golden, and therefore associated with Joy, the very force he was trying to dethrone, definitely did not help. "WELL, THAT IS AN INSULT TO INJURY IF YOU ASK ME!" he shouted as he slammed the console, hitting random buttons which were, luckily enough, just the right buttons to stop the projection of the memory. He briefly considered telling the whole story on his own, but, feeling distressed after having to listen to the jingle, simply concluded: "A new location calls for a new leader. End of argument."
"Yeah, it's about time we had a revolution in Riley's mind." Disgust said. While Anger took it as proof that she finally got it, in reality, Disgust didn't want to get on the wrong side of whoever would end up as the leader of Riley's mind after this debacle. And if, once Joy returned, Disgust said something contradictory to her current assertions to please her, then so be it.
"Wait, wait, wait." Fear did not want to rush the process. "If we are in for a revolution, why don't we plan it?"
Seeing support from both Fear and Disgust, Anger genuinely laughed. "Alright! Unfortunately, it is way too late now, so I guess we will just sleep and do the planning tomorrow." He finished with a stern voice, as Riley closed her eyes and the outside suddenly became dark, with the new Family Island being the only source of ambient light, making Headquarters rather dark. He and Disgust then headed towards their bedrooms, while Fear, once again, was delegated for Dream Duty, as he always had been in the absence of Joy and Sadness.
Fortunately for both Anger and Disgust, Fear took to Dream Duty well. He did not wake Riley up from a nightmare, and when Anger's own alarm clock went off, Riley was already wide awake and, under Fear's command, watching a Downfall parody which had recently been awarded the monthly titles 'Best Story-Based Parody' and 'Parody of the Month'.
However, once Disgust was shaken from her sleep by Anger, she definitely did not take to it well. Still yawning, she asked him: "So early?"
"Revolutions don't wait." Anger said, trying his best to look at the console, where he was going to instate the revolution he planned, and not Fear, lying next to it.
Yes, lying next to it. One would think at first that Fear was scared either by a nightmare (despite the fact that both Anger and Disgust had slept peacefully throughout the period when Riley woke up) or the parody, but his barely comprehensible rant proved otherwise: "I had an epiphany about Joy... she was the one who destroyed the Islands... she was the one who killed Bing Bong!"
While Disgust thought that this was definitely uncalled for, given that both of those events were caused by multiple factors and could not be attributed to a single individual, emotion, Mind Worker or otherwise, Anger was merely convinced of his convictions more. "You see? Exactly! Leadership has gotten to Joy so badly, she turned into a tyrant!" he shouted, barely able to contain himself out of rage over Joy, as he went to the shelf with ideas, picked up the lightbulb that he had held beforehand, and went to the console.
As he did, Disgust had to briefly close her eyes and shake her head. This idea lightbulb looked identical to the one Anger had used a week ago - exactly a week ago - to make Riley make a run for Minnesota, which then Sadness took out, and Disgust herself chucked out through the broken Headquarters window, not wanting any physical evidence of that particular incident. This can't possibly be?
Unfortunately, that particular train of thought (could any process of thought regarding the emotions not be named after a physical concept the emotions were aware of and used?) was interrupted and replaced as Anger finally delivered what his concrete actions regarding Joy were: "Time for my plan to be put into action. Once I put this idea in, Joy won't be able to touch the console, and she will step down. What do you say?"
Disgust was frozen solid. Sure, Joy needed to be replaced, and sure, she was supporting Anger all the way (at least in Joy's absence), but not allowing her to make Riley happy or create familiar golden memories was just asking for trouble. Thankfully, Anger did not solicit advice from her first, instead holding the idea in front of Fear's face, just as last time. Fear, in a reaction opposite that of Disgust, shook uncontrollably as he looked, wide-eyed (as he always was), at the idea, before putting his hands to his face and taking one step away as he said: "Umm... not too sure."
Anger then moved the idea right to Disgust's line of sight, making her decide. Indeed, this was a very difficult decision for her to make on everyone's behalf. The idea was drastic and could possibly cause severe damage, but at the same time, if Anger didn't receive a positive response from Fear or Disgust, he might push them, and she would get on his wrong side. Ultimately, the second option won out, and Disgust declared: "Yeah, that will serve her justice."
Anger thus, satisfied with Disgust's response, briefly threw the idea in the air, caught it by the bulb (as he couldn't exactly insert it while holding it by the cork), stepped towards the dedicated console slot and plugged the idea in, immediately making it light up.
At the time, Joy was together with Sadness at Long-Term Memory, at the edge of the chasm that led to the Memory Dump. This particular location, which gave them a very good, if distant, view of Headquarters, was almost a perfect brooding place, especially considering the fact that this was the rough location where the bridge to the former Goofball Island, the first of Riley's Islands of Personality to fall in Joy's absence, was located.
If that wasn't enough to remind Joy of what had happened just a week ago, then what she was holding in her hands definitely was. As part of the trip, Joy had picked up the now nearly useless sad Core Memories. Five of them, of course, were the original Core Memories that powered the fallen Islands. The sixth one was created before the events, and featured Riley crying at school; Joy didn't even want to imagine what kind of Island it would have created, were she not there to stop it from creating one.
At this point, Joy herself couldn't bear to look at the memories anymore. She wasn't going to get rid of them by throwing them over the cliff. They were simply too important to be lost this way, and even if they weren't, unwanted yet fully vibrant memories always found a way to come back; Joy had already experienced this when she attempted to throw away the TripleDent Gum jingle. Instead, she was simply going to look over the memories, and, well, probably put them back into Bing Bong's bag.
That was when Joy heard an ominous, unfamiliar sound, and saw her arms turn gray.
The sound was unfamiliar because it was the Windows XP shutdown sound, and since Riley owned a Mac laptop for her whole life, of course she wouldn't recognize it. Even then, the origins of the sound didn't particularly matter to her.
The discoloration, however, mattered to both her and Sadness. Sadness thus asked her: "Joy, you look different."
"Um... Yeah. About that." Joy said, not being able to find words to describe her most recent predicament, as she faced Sadness and, having located Bing Bong's bag, attempted to put the memories back in, before realizing she simply didn't have enough hands to do it alone. "Would you mind holding the bag for me?" she thus asked.
"Oh. Sorry." Sadness quietly motioned towards the bag, picked it up and held it wide open, allowing Joy to put the memories in. Joy then picked up the bag, threw it onto her back like a schoolbag and headed for the nearest Train of Thought station.
"Trust me, I have no idea what happened to me either. I don't feel different, and seeing gray hands in front of me is confusing to me too. And that is why we need to take the Train of Thought back to Headquarters to see if someone has been mischievous." While Joy had attempted to keep her cheerful demeanor as of the beginning of her speech, by the end, she was considerably angry. Of course, it was perfectly normal for an emotion to act outside their name, but, coupled with Joy's transformation, it was still enough to make Sadness at least somewhat worried.
At this point, though, Sadness didn't say anything. She simply followed Joy to the station, boarded the train after a minute of waiting and then waited for Joy to decide what she would do next.
Joy, though, knew exactly what she was doing next. By this point, the view of Riley's mind itself had become painful to her, and she closed the doors of the train car they had entered, so that she wouldn't be forced to look at it during the ride. As she did that, though, she definitely noticed something far bigger amiss. Joy thus asked:
"Why is everything so dark?"
For a few tense seconds, Anger, Fear and Disgust watched the idea. Will it take hold and change Riley for the time being? Or will it be rejected and force Anger to think of some other plan to dethrone Joy?
Ultimately, though, it turned out that Riley accepted the idea, as it descended to occupy its place and was fully activated. Anger thus delivered, satisfied that his mission, so far, was a success: "She's locked out. Now, I am the leader here."
At this point, Disgust voicing her concerns about Anger not being able to learn from history's mistakes (while simultaneously acknowledging history, just not the right kind of history, mind you) was too little, too late, but nevertheless, she needed his plan clarified, at least in the way he understood it. She thus asked him: "Hey, wouldn't this just be a repeat of last time?"
Anger, initially, did not seem to understand the question the way Disgust understood it. Rather, he decided to answer in an obviously sarcastic manner: "Of course not. Joy still can return, push buttons on the console and corrupt our girl!"
"Anything but that..!" Fear said as he laughed. Like last time, it was laughter that came from taking Anger's line as sincere. However, unlike last time, it was a nervous laugh and not a genuine one.
Anger, though, felt like his head was going to burst into flames due to the fact that he had processed that Fear, again, took him literally. "NO! SHE'S NOT COMING BACK!" he shouted directly in Fear's face, making him significantly scared, moving him notably and throwing something into Disgust's eye.
As Fear and Disgust both took their time to gather themselves, Anger decided to briefly pay attention to the video Riley was watching. In it, in the heat of the battle, a familiar dictator with distinguished hair (hint: it was not Joy) declared: "Now watch as we destroy this ship and become heroes to the world!"
And indeed, it was Anger's intent to become a hero to this world. By eliminating Joy's presence... oh, right, I've got to properly respond to Disgust first. Anger thus answered, before the man on the video finished his sentence: "By the way: no, this won't be a repeat."
Disgust, though, was not satisfied with the general trend of Anger answering her questions ambiguously, then purporting something that she would have definitely not agreed with (at least if she wasn't trying to please whoever the current authority in Riley's mind was all the time). She thus asked him, trying to make what she wanted to hear as clear as possible: "How will it not be? Joy is absent, just as back then."
"I will be the acting Joy." Anger answered nonchalantly.
At this point, Disgust was definitely suspicious of Anger's actions and his inability to judge events properly. She was there, nine days ago, as he attempted to be "the acting Joy" and only got Riley grounded. "But you're not..?" she asked.
"Yes, I am. This is how I will replace Joy..." Anger responded as he, once again, pushed buttons on the console to recall a memory, this time, without much regard to its actual content other than the fact that it was created by Joy.
However, once again, he really should have anticipated it being that particular happy memory, as, by now, he had recalled it for the fourth time. The jingle thus began: "TripleDent Gum..."
"NO!" This time, Anger didn't even let the first line be finished before he slammed the console. Once again, it did the trick and disabled the memory, but at the expense of scaring Fear and making him fall over. Fear was expendable, though, at least in Anger's mindset. Disgust, meanwhile, began deeply thinking to herself, wondering where it all went horribly wrong.
Anger, though, just kept pushing buttons on the console. "Not that memory specifically, but I can recall happy memories, which should be enough to get a taste of Joy while she's locked out." he explained, at the same time making Riley look up. Since she was not directly looking at the computer, the parody was no longer in focus, and therefore, Disgust was pretty much forced to listen.
Yeah, you can do that, but ultimately, your choice of memories is very limited, perhaps even to that one memory. Disgust thought to herself, looking for words to tell Anger that while yes, she supported him all the way, she didn't actually support this plan anymore.
Before she could tell Anger anything to convince him otherwise, though, the familiar sound of the Train of Thought on its rails echoed across Headquarters, giving the cue for Fear to stand up again. Soon enough, the horns of the train tooted, putting Anger, Fear and Disgust to a new, distinct mood, and not long thereafter, Joy and Sadness burst into the emotions' shared office.
However, while Sadness was ready to resume her normal work (or, rather, her newfound work after Joy had discovered her purpose), Joy was... different. Her appearance was one thing to consider: her skin was now a pale, lifeless gray, which clashed with her still vibrant blue hair and eyes and her newly colored blue lips, and there was a visible shadow beneath her feet, whereas previously, there would only be a glow. However, she also didn't particularly act like she used to. Normally, she would be excited to bring about the next big change to Riley's mind, but as of now, she was visibly flustered.
"Emotions, I want an explanation. Now." The voice was definitely Joy's, but the attitude wasn't. Therefore, there was no reason to suspect this was an impostor (especially since Sadness had come with her, and Sadness simply wouldn't let an impostor try and take Joy's role), and every reason to suspect the idea being put in changed Joy somehow.
"Like I would give you an explanation, onionhead." Anger did his best to talk to someone who, as he had confirmed, he did not see as a legitimate leader anymore.
"It's Joy, and I deserve an explanation, since I am still your leader." Joy said as she crossed her arms. She was having absolutely none of Anger's attitude right now.
"I would love to see you try to be both of those." Anger responded to Joy, before quickly turning to Fear and Disgust and whispering to them: "Quick, back me up."
"You see, Joy," Fear began on Anger's command, "you have to face the fact that you are a danger to both Riley and her mind, having destroyed all her Islands of Personality, and for the time being, it would be for the best if Anger took over as the leader."
"You have got to be kidding me." Joy shook her head in disbelief as she threw Bing Bong's bag to the back of Headquarters, making it trace a long arc in the air, then moved towards the console. This was almost definitely not happening, and Joy was ready to assert her own position. "I was the one who created the Islands in the first place, I created a vast majority of Riley's memories, and most importantly, I kept her happy. Just. Like." Joy extended her hands over the console like a predator reaching for its prey, then moved to hit the console, ready to finish this off with 'This.'
However, as she did hit the console, she felt an electric shock going through her. She quickly moved her hands away from the console, realizing that whatever was affecting her skin and glow was also affecting her ability to use the console.
That was when she noticed the glowing idea lightbulb. She recognized the shape; it was the shape only reserved for the most dangerous and damaging ideas that Riley could possibly have. If Anger did indeed try to depose of Joy, this was completely hypocritical of him; while she might have caused indirect harm via not allowing Sadness to touch the console, he just caused direct harm in not allowing her to touch the console. Ultimately, whichever avenue you went, while being sad was important, being happy was more important, and while Sadness being shunned was wrong, Joy being shunned was the biggest kind of wrong Headquarters had seen so far.
Joy thus glared at Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, who had taken their seats for varying reasons, but mostly due to the fact that she would blow up over this. Indeed, while Joy's head didn't burst into flames like Anger's would, she certainly felt the exact same feeling, and thus, arms slightly twisted back, she proclaimed, feeling like a repeat of the same words would just put more emphasis on them:
"You have got to be kidding me."
[ASBusinessMagnet] And that, in a little over 4,500 words, is the reason why, if there's ever an Andersen's Mind novelization à la Inside Out: Driven by Emotions, I will not be the one writing it.